By Catriona Macpherson

LEGACY OF THE MONGOLS

The Mongol Empire was the largest continental empire of
medieval and modern times. Their conquests have to be most
singular in the history of conquests, not just from a military
aspect, which was formidable indeed, but from an administrative
viewpoint. To build an empire this size was one thing, but to
govern it was quite another.

By hard work and tenacious effort, Jenghiz Khan had built up
his empire which he thought of as the heritage of the imperial
house. Before his death, Jenghiz Khan divided this empire among
his sons and immediate family, but as custom dictated, it remained
the joint property of the whole imperial family, who along with the
Mongol aristocracy made up the ruling class. The revenues from this
immense territory did not go to the appanaged princes who camped in
their individual lands, but went to the Khan to be shared among the
members of the dynasty. The princes were not allowed to interfere
in the internal affairs of their territories, which were governed
by lieutenants, darugachi, who were directly responsible to the
Khan, a good example of the Conqueror's administrative ability, allowing
him to control the empire. The fragmentation of these
large Mongol holdings into smaller khanates, and eventually prince
fighting prince, set the stage for the build-up of the Ottoman
Empire which dominated and suffocated Asia and Eastern Europe for
over four centuries.

The feudal princes who ruled the Mongols until the early
twentieth century were for the most part descendants of Jenghiz
Khan. Many elements of the constitution of the Mongol Empire can
be found in the states that developed out of its disintegration,
some being in evidence to this day. This can be attributed to the
organizing power of Jenghiz Khan.

The Kuriltai, or great assembly, was an outstanding example
of collective rule. Military, as well as civil matters, of the
empire were debated by the khan, his family and the rest of the
aristocracy. Even though there was open discussion in the
kuriltai, the voice of the Khan usually prevailed, unless one or
several of the stronger princes could pursuade him to alter his
view on a matter before the kuriltai. As one can imagine, this did
not happen often with Jenghiz Khan.

To maintain communication between the individual khanates in
the empire, and between these khanates and the khan, and throughout
the empire, a rapid and effective post system, yam, was organized.
A continuous change of mounts, made possible by the enormous
numbers of horses available to them, allowed some of the riders to
travel over two hundred miles in one day. There were three main
classes in the postal system: `second class', carried by foot-
runners; `first class', carried on horseback; and `His Majesty's
Service', carried by non-stop riders who changed horses but not
riders. This yam lasted long after the empire had ceased to exist.

The Yassa, or legal code, that Jenghiz Khan compiled and
imposed on the Mongols, had immediate and far-reaching effects. It
brought all the different tribes, with their different laws, under
one legal system; eliminating friction and internecine wars; and
enabled Jenghiz Khan to unify the tribes and so build up his
enormous empire. Thanks to the Yassa, among the Mongols, theft was
virtually stamped out, as well as murder, adultery, sodomy,
fornication, usury, intentional lying and sorcery.

An interesting provision of the Yassa was the stiff penalty,
death, for the same person going bankrupt three times. First and
second bankruptcies carried lesser penalties. The Yassa provided
for the proper way to kill an animal, if it were to be eaten;
conduct in battle, whether attacking or retreating; what to do with
a runaway slave; and prohibited giving food or clothing to a
prisoner without permission from his captor. Death was the penalty
for disobeying any of the above. The Code set forth an orderly and
systematic way of levying taxes. The Yassa was effective in the
early days of the empire, but after the administration of the
empire was turned over to foreigners, as was nearly always the
case, it was unable to prevent corruption and disregard for the law
which characterized the Mongol government. The Yassa continued for
some generations after the time of Jenghiz Khan, and by some Mongol
tribes after the empire ceased to be.

Under Jenghiz Khan a most complete religious tolerance
was established across the length and breadth of Asia. Churches
weren't harmed and priests of all faiths were permitted freedom to
practice their beliefs. The strength and distribution of the
principal religions of the world were permanently changed by Mongol
conquests.

Representatives of every nation appeared at the court at
Karakorum: envoys of the pope, Buddhist priests from India,
Byzantine and Armenian merchants, Italian, French and Chinese
artisans and craftsmen rubbed shoulders with Arab officials, Indian
and Persian mathematicians and astronomers.

Too much has been written about the Mongol campaigns and
atrocities, not enough about their insatiable curiosity and
penchant for knowledge. They were not particularly original, but
their effect in broadening and spreading knowledge and skills
equaled, or perhaps surpassed, the spread of Hellenic civilization,
which has been attributed to the conqueror, Alexander.
Extended post roads spanned the entire empire, and both
valuable merchandise and messages were carried to all parts of the
empire. Legend has it that an unprotected young female could take
a sack of gold safely from the Don River to Khanbaligh, the city of
the Khans.

The Mongols reopened four major trade routes that had been
closed, or disrupted by wars and bandits, for centuries:

(1) the old Silk Road, going from West China, through the Tarim Basin, West
Turkestan and on into Iran;

(2) an alternate route from the lower Volga, along the Syr Darya, through Dzungaria to West China;

(3) a sea route from China to the Persian Gulf; and

(4) a Siberian route, possibly pioneered by the Mongols, that began in the Volga-Kama
region, ran through southern Siberia to Lake Baikal, and then
turned south to Karakorum and on into Peking.

Merchants dispatched their caravans over these roads carrying new and useful
things to Europe. This relinking of Europe and the Orient resulted
in an increased cultural exchange, and a greater knowledge of world
geography.

Skilled artists and craftsmen, as well as scientists,
physicians and astronomers, from captured countries, were moved
freely around the vast Mongol empire. Of particular importance
were the exchanges between China and Iran: Bolad Chengziang, a
Mongol ambassador to Iran and the Persian historian, Rashid al-Din,
worked together to have Chinese books on medicine, agronomy, and
government translated into Persian. They also had an agricultural
experiment station set up in Tabriz to test new seed strains from
China and India. Chinese physicians and astronomers were brought
to Iran and the Ilkhans sent Muslim astronomers and physicians to
China. Food recipes were shared, including the preparation of
sherbet.

A lasting memorial to Bolad and Rashid as-Din was the latter's
history, "The Collection of Chronicles", commissioned by the
Ilkhan, Ghazan. It is a history of the Islamic dynasties, India,
China, the Jews, the Franks, and the Mongol and Turkish tribes.
Bolad was able to supply information on the early stages of the
empire, from Mongol chronicles, that subsequently were lost.
Mongol rule in Asia opened that continent to European
missionaries and traders, of whom the best known were the Polos.
Their visits during the reign of Qublai, sparked Europe's interest
in a water route to China for access to the enormous trade
possibilities, and in an alternate route to replace the difficult
and dangerous overland route. The search for a water route to
China set off a wave of exploration, leading to a sea route to
India around the Cape of Good Hope, and the accidental discovery of
the New World.

In their westward sweep the Mongols destroyed many cities and
towns, and wiped out whole populations in some cases. Even though
they rebuilt a number of towns and restored some of the ravaged
farm lands, a good many towns and cultivated areas simply returned
to barren desert. It proved impossible to rebuild some of the
towns and cities after their populations had been annihilated.
Much of the Mongol destruction and massacre arose from ignorance
and by the time they learned the value of cities, towns and
civilized people, it was too late for too many of them. Recent
research and reappraisal of contemporary literature on the Mongol
conquests have led to downplaying the terrible destruction, and
stressing the more positive and constructive achievements of the
last great nomad empire.

Worthy of attention in the field of art were their carvings
from horn, bone, and hard wood. From these materials they made
numerous articles: plates, cups and bowls; bracelets, brooches and
plaques. Their geometrical and animal forms showed skill and
accuracy in their lively depictions of horses, deer, tigers, and
birds of prey. By conquest their art-forms spread over a large part
of the Old World, from China to Britain.

Mongol horsemen played polo, most certainly one of the minor
legacies left to the world, by their conquests.

Through Mongol conquests, the widespread dispersal of the
Turkish race over Western Asia had far-reaching ramifications. By
the time Mongke was elected Khan, virtually all of the Turkish
people of Asia were incorporated in the Mongol Empire. They formed
not only a large part of the army but also most of the empire's
administrators, teachers and clerks were Turkish. As stated
earlier, the Turkish language eventually replaced the Mongol
language, which for a long time had been spoken by a minority.
In many ways, the countless numbers of Turks employed by the
Mongols, over the decades, altered Mongol society. As they spread
westward, they took with them their language, customs and religion.

They left no lasting monuments to a brief but glorious
civilization, for one should call the Mongol nation civilized.
Their roots can be traced back to a nomad/barbarian culture, but
from the time of unification under Jenghiz Khan, when for the first
time they called themselves Mongols, they must be considered a
civilized nation. They had no poets to chronicle their heroic
deeds and astounding military prowess, and the Mongol language had
been replaced by Turkish throughout most of the Empire, resulting
in the breakdown of the linguistic and political unity of the
Empire. Eventually the Mongols took on the ideas and culture of
the people they defeated, and for a time ruled. Ironically the
Secret History of the Mongols, dating from the 13th century, was
collected and written by some of their former enemies. The 8th
century Orkon inscriptions, written in archaic Turkish, by the
ancestors of the Mongols, is the only other surviving historical
record.

In western Asia, where the Mongol empire survived for the
longest period of time, the Christians lost their crusader foothold
along the eastern Mediterranean Coast. The Catholic kings could
not ally themselves with the Mongols, whom they considered savage
barbarians, and beneath them. This was unfortunate because it left
them to the mercies of the Mamluks, with whom no agreement was
possible. Christianity may have done better with a Mongol alliance
because the Mongols were after temporal power and had always
espoused religious tolerance. Unlike the Muslims, they had no
religious quarrel with the Christians and even were somewhat
sympathetic to their faith. They might even have converted to
Christianity, but as a nation of warriors, they could not respect
a group of people who would let religious disputes among themselves
stand in the way of political unity and military victory. In time
they embraced the strong, united religion of Islam.

The turmoil created by the Mongols in Central Asia resulted in
an unheaval of peoples, their cultures and their religions. The
rise and fall of their empire produced more enduring effects in
Europe than in Asia. Much of the culture east of the Euphrates
River was stifled under early Mongol dominance, giving rise to a
westward flow of culture rooted in the ancient classical world.

For the first fifty years of the fifteenth century, learned
refugees brought books, works of art, artifacts, ideas and
inventions to the West; all of which launched Europe into the
greatest cultural regeneration ever experienced by man, the
Rennaisance.

After the retreat from Russia, of the Mongol hordes, something
rather unexpected took place. From the chaos of the warring
Russian princedoms, nationalism arose making possible the creation
of the empire of Ivan the Great, the first of a series of
oppressive Russian dynasties, and a tradition of despotism, which
by one name or another is still with them.

The Mongol gift to China was unity also, a unity which
survived for seven hundred years. The centuries old Chinese
culture was too deeply entrenched and the Mongols, who had united
China for first time, succumbed to their culture.

Jenghiz Khan and his successors should be remembered, not for
blood baths, pillage and burning, actions not so unusual in their
time, but for breaking down the barriers set up in the Dark Ages,
and putting the East in touch with the West, to the benefit of
mankind in general. This should be their memorial.